The development of CarShop’s latest website, carshop.co.uk, which launched last year, was inspired by the rapid growth in customers using mobile devices to view and search stock.

The proportion of visitors using tablets and smartphones went from less than 10% in 2012 to more than 30% a year later. The previous site was confusing and fiddly and the poor user experience was damaging the business. CarShop’s primary objectives were to improve the customer experience and increase lead volumes through improved completion rates for enquiry forms and conversion rates.

CarShop took a mobile-first approach to the new site’s design to ensure customers get a great experience, with faster response times for loading of pages and features.

The site was integrated into CarShop’s CRM to allow customer contact staff to retrieve online quotes, such as vehicle valuations, and complete the sales process over the telephone or Live Chat, so providing a “seamless multi-channel experience”.

Since the launch of the site, mobile traffic has risen to more than 50%. Shortly after launch, enquiry forms generated were up 90% year-on-year, online reserve-and-collect appointments had increased 36% and valuation appointments rose 28%.

The website was judged to be clear in its purpose, with a navigation that was simple to use and allowed users to focus on what they wanted from it, without being bombarded with offers and alternative paths to follow.

It features useful tools such as stock alerts, vehicle ‘watching’ and shortlisting and a body style search. The language used throughout is also clear and customer-focused – industry jargon was clearly ruled out when building the site.

The judges also noted the site was designed, built and is maintained by CarShop’s in-house team.

Shortlisted
HR Owen
Perrys Motor Sales

Judged with support from Google

Previous winners
2014 Tates Motor Group (www.tatescars.co.uk); 2013 Mana Premiere Automobiles; 2012 Vospers Motorhouse